NEUROSCIENCE, NEUROPHARMACOLOGY AND EXERCISE SCIENCE
Dr Jacob Thorstensen,
Neuroscientist & Assistant Professor,
Faculty of Health Sciences & Medicine
Bond University, Queensland, Australia &
Honorary Research Fellow
The School of Biomedical Sciences,
The University of Queensland
Queensland, Australia
RESEARCHER PROFILE
Filmed in the Gold Coast, Australia | November 2025
Dr Jacob Thorstensen is an early-career Assistant Professor in Neuroscience and Physiology in the Faculty of Health Sciences & Medicine at Bond University. He is also an honorary research fellow in The School of Biomedical Sciences at The University of Queensland.
Dr Thorstensen graduated first-class honours in exercise science, completed a PhD in neurophysiology at Griffith University, and completed a post-doctoral research fellowship in neurology at The University of Queensland.
His research uses non-invasive neurostimulation techniques to study how the brain and spinal cord control muscles in human subjects.
His findings have been published in several discipline-leading scientific journals including The Journal of Physiology, Journal of Neurophysiology and Neuropharmacology and disseminated at large, international scientific meetings.
His work has unveiled several new neuroscientific mechanisms which have future applications for movement disorders. Recent recognitions include being on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for the Healthcare & Science Category (2024) and being selected as a Career Achievement Award finalist in the 7NEWS QLD Young Achiever Awards (2025).
Dr Thorstensen sits on the editorial boards for The Journal of Physiology and Journal of Applied Physiology.
He is a part of the executive committee for the Australasian Brain Stimulation Society, and the early career researcher and education committees for the International Society of Electrophysiology and Kinesiology.
He is also part of a team that has recently been funded through a Multiple Sclerosis Australia Incubator Grant for a neurostimulation project.
Source: Supplied
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6821-1547
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Big data research in maternal, perinatal and renal health epidemiology
Dr Erandi Hewawasam is a Research Fellow at the National Perinatal Epidemiology and Statistics Unit within the Centre for Big Data Research in Health at University of New South Wales (UNSW). Her work focuses on maternal and reproductive health, chronic diseases (e.g., kidney disease, endometriosis), and early-life outcomes. She is the Program Manager for the Fertility Medicine Data Asset for Australia (FM-DATA), an MRFF-funded national infrastructure project linking fertility, hospital, Medicare, pharmaceutical, and perinatal datasets covering more than 40 million individuals. She also coordinates the Early Life Course Platform, integrating around 20 New South Wales and Australian federal administrative datasets to support population health research.
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Biostatistics in Clinical Trials
As a biostatistician working in research and clinical settings, Kate Francis plays a vital role in ensuring all projects adhere to best practice guidelines and are transparently reported. She has served as the lead statistician for the analysis of clinical trials across a broad range of subject areas, including neonatal resuscitation, BCG for allergy and infection, convulsive status epilepticus and her work has been published in the top journals such as The New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, and The Lancet. Most recently she was awarded the 2025 Excellence in Trial Statistics Award for her work on the PLUSS trial.
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Clinical Research in Emergency Medicine
Professor Daniel Fatovich is a senior emergency physician and clinical researcher at Royal Perth Hospital Emergency Department (ED), with over 30 years’ experience in the design and conduct of clinical research in Emergency Medicine. He is also Head of the Centre for Clinical Research in Emergency Medicine (CCREM) within the Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research.
